Luke 20, 21, 22

Luke 20, 21, 22

Overview:  Jesus teaches.  Jesus shares a final supper with his disciples.  Jesus is arrested and his trial begins.

"Every day he was teaching in the temple, and at night he would go out and spend the night on the Mount of Olives, as it was called."(21:37)  This verse is one of those that takes on new life when you have an opportunity to stand on the Mount of Olives and to look across the Kidron Valley to the place where the Temple would have stood and imagine the spot on to the left of the Temple in the upper part of the city where the last supper would have taken place.  The hillside was probably covered with Jewish pilgrims in Jerusalem for the passover. A sort of religious KOA campground.  Perhaps the place Jesus returned to following the last supper, the Garden of Gethsemane was a place near to a spot where his family had camped during his growing up years, a place he had developed a special affinity for and returned to now in the years of his public ministry.  The places are close together - you can get from here to there - but also far apart when you begin thinking about Jesus beginning the day in one place, traversing the valley to get to the upper room, back across the valley to pray in the garden and then once more back towards the upper city when he is arrested and taken to Caiphus' house.
"When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time."(Luke 4:13)  Remember this verse from earlier in Luke? The devil was by no means giving up, simply waiting for an opportune time.  Foreshadowing?  Perhaps.  "Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was one of the twelve."(Luke 22:3)  No subtle larger point to be made.  Simply, this is a reminder that the devil is always looking for opportunities.  We talk, sometimes, abstractly about evil.  As though evil is a random occurence that unfortunately springs up and intrudes in our lives.  These passages argue otherwise. Evil is not random.  The devil is calculating and patient and looking for openings.  We do ourselves no favors when we play down what we are up against.